


The Wolf in the Corn

by JoAsakura



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, creepy corn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: Jack grows up hearing about things in the fields.





	The Wolf in the Corn

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post and banged out immediately, ^_^;; http://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/176786461868/hey-i-dont-think-ive-ever-talked-here-about-corn

There are wolves in the corn, his big brother Bobby says to him when he’s little. Their footsteps are the wind rustling the stalks and their breathing is the soft hiss of the irrigation system.

 Jack is nine years old and insists he’s too old to be scared by stupid stories. Besides that, he’s fast. He can outrun any stupid corn wolf.

When Jack is twelve, Bobby dies- lost to a war Jack barely understands on the news- his parents put a marker for him at the edge of the field. He has nightmares about the wolves, and wakes up wondering if they’re ghosts haunting that green-gold sea.

Fall is marginally better, after the harvest and the fields are rows of stubby stems jutting brown from the earth. He tells himself they don’t look like grave markers. Sometimes he runs through the rows until his chest hurts and the house is just a dot in the distance. But there’s no sign anything’s been there but the combine and deer.

When Jack is eighteen, there’s a new war brewing and he sits by Bobby’s empty grave at night, listening to the hot summer wind rustling the stalks. He doesn’t want to die, not like Bobby did- scared and alone- but he’s too restless to stay tethered to this place. He just wants to run.

There’s a soft hiss in the corn, and Jack freezes, squinting out into the dark. The irrigation system is off, but the sound, like water sizzling on a hot pan, wafts towards him.

For a moment, he’s nine again, and Bobby’s whispering about the wolves in the corn, and Jack’s heart beats a little harder.

There’s a flash of red in the darkness. Like animal eyes in the headlights, and Jack glances back to the warm light of the house. It’s not far and he’s fast.

But he closes his hand on a rock instead. It feels stupid and tiny in his hand against the way the wolves loom in his imagination, but he takes a step forward anyways.

Black smoke belches from between the stalks, hissing in the air like water on a hot pan, and Jack is tumbling back before he can catch his footing. There’s bone white in the darkness and that feral flash of red, and Jack barely registers that this ghost in his field has a GUN of all things before he brings the rock up to smash the wraith in the side of the head.

It hits, solid, hard. A crack like a stone on a windshield and Jack scrambles back as the creature staggers back and…

“Ow. _Fuck_.” It sounds like a meat grinder in an empty basement, and Jack stops dead.

“Who the hell are you?” Jack asks, against his very better judgement.

The bone mask flicks up and Jack swears those red eyes narrow beneath it.

And they stand like that, silent, as the wind rustles the corn for what seems like forever.

The black-robed wraith takes a step, oily dark smoke coiling around it as it moves, and Jack watches, fascinated.

“I thought I could do it,” the ghost says in that terrible voice, and Jack tries not to flinch as a cold metal hand touches his face. “But I can’t. _Goddamnit_ , Jackie.”

Every rational thought Jack has says to not backsass what is apparently the grim reaper, but he can’t help himself. There’s a feeling of déjà vu creeping hard through his guts and it’s louder than caution. “Guess it ain’t my time to die.” He drawls, and the thing in black yanks it’s hand back and starts to laugh.

It’s a weird, reverb-laden horrorshow of a laugh, but the grim reaper flops down on the grass in a ploof of black smoke, and sprawls out. “I suck.”

Jack sits down beside it… him… and draws his knees up. “You havin’ a bad day?”

The mask lolls to look at him from the depths of the black hood and the ghost makes another laugh like a wheezing calliope.  “You could say that.  God, I forgot how beautiful you were at this age.” That metal hand makes a vague motion, like he’s deciding whether or not to touch Jack again, then it falls. Moonlight traces what Jack swears is body armour.  “Maybe you could just not go and join the army, ok?”

Jack stretches his legs out and flattens his palms into the damp grass to look up at the stars. “I can’t stay here, an’ if there’s a war with omnics like the news is sayin? Maybe I can do something. I’m not that smart, but I’m fast. And I can take a hit.”

“You’re smarter than you think.  But you’re not wrong about the hits, that’s for sure.” The grim reaper’s hand closes over his, and Jack shivers. Not because he’s frightened, but because it feels so familiar. “Maybe it’ll be different this time,” he says, and sits up.  The mask dissolves into coils of smoke, and there’s a mostly human face looking back at him.

Brown skin mottled with grey, and there’s the same whiff of decay Jack’s caught when they’ve found a deer, dead and bloated on a hot highway. His beard and hair are disheveled iron grey, and his eyes are red in the darkness. “I don’t want us to be enemies anymore, Jackie.”

Jack shifts to twine his fingers with the reaper’s. “I suspect we don’t gotta be,” he says, even if he doesn’t quite know what he means. “What’s your name, anyways?”

“You’ll find out pretty soon. I’ll have your back, you’ll have mine. Just promise me, you’ll remember this time, even if I forget,” the reaper says, his damaged face catching the moonlight. “It’ll be different this time.”

Jack stares out into the corn, listening to the wolves in the wind. To the ghosts.

And for the first time in years, he’s not afraid.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
